This week’s female high school English teacher arrested for allegedly having sex with a couple underage male students is Ashley Hall.
Local police arrested Hall, 33, on Friday. Prior to her arrest, she was teaching English to sophomores and juniors at Opp High School in Opp, Ala., a tiny, rural town of 6,659 inhabitants roughly in the middle of nowhere.
Alabama is a celebrated hotbed of student-teacher sex — so much so that AL.com boasts a set of links with huge font called “STUDENT-TEACHER SEX.” All told, the website, the state’s top news site, has collected nearly 60 stories on the topic since 2008. Over 50 of these incidents are from 2012 or later. (RELATED: PROOF: Alabama Is The Teacher-Student Sex Capital Of The USA)
Hall, this week’s teacher, faces two counts of engaging in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student under the age of 19. State law prohibits teachers from sex with any students under 19.
She was released from jail after posting a steep bail of $700,000 — $350,000 for each statutory rape count.
Officials at Opp High suspended Hall on Friday. With pay.
“The students are of utmost importance and our focus is on them and making sure they have what they need,” local school district superintendent Michael Smithart told AL.com. “Our high school is still about math and science and history and that is what we’re doing today and will continue to do.”
Notably, Hall is the fifth woman whom police in Opp have arrested for allegedly having sex with underage males.
Since January, police in the small town arrested and charged three more women — Mandi Harrison, 25; Kristina Burroughs, 30; and Tiffany Blair, 35 — on rape and sodomy charges, according to Dothan CBS affiliate WTVY.
Police said the boys involved in those criminal investigations range between 13 and 15 years of age.
A fifth Opp woman, 20-year-old Chelsea Alexandria Calhoun was also arrested this year for having underage sex with a boy, notes Cincinnati radio station WLW. Calhoun was charged with second-degree rape.
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